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>>192575Scott Shellady: Yeah, because in the fall, we all know, November the 5th, it's going to be about affordability, right?
And this goes, I would think, a long way towards that affordability issue, right?
And I guess my question is, is that how is he strong-arming us?
How is he getting these folks to lean in with him to bring these prices down?
What's in it for them?
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T.J. Wilson: Well, it's a good question.
I think folks forget that President Trump is the only president we've had in decades, to my knowledge, that started and ran large businesses, very successful large businesses.
And in a lot of ways, he leads from the front in that way.
And we see that with the way that he talks to these companies, with the ways that he holds them accountable, frankly, for when the macros are trending lower, which is what we're seeing.
And, you know, it's not acceptable to not pass those savings on to consumers.
And frankly, we've got a lot of patriotic companies that you've seen cut prices and pass those savings that are systemic along to consumers.
So, you know, I think he leads from the front.
I think he also, you know, provides a lot of certainty to folks.
We all know that that's the key piece of this, right?
Before prices get cut, there's got to be certainty that, you know, we're not going to get whiplash.
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Scott Shellady: Well, so the last thing that really, well, one of the last things, but it's probably the biggest, and you probably know what I'm going to say, but he needs to have come his way in line with what he's doing here with these retailers is that energy price, oil prices.
That's going to be kind of the fly in the ointment here in the short term.
And I say short term because I do believe he understands that it definitely will be over.
And obviously, the sooner, the better.
And the tradeoff is, and I've said this a hundred times on this show, at least we're getting something for this higher inflation.
And today it came in rather benign and it's going in the right direction.
But we had 9.1% CPI in June of 2022 under Joe Biden.
And what did we get from that?
Did we disarm any big terrorist country in the world for that?
No, we had to pay a tax and we got nothing for it, at least with this small tax - qnd we're still not as high as the prices were under his government - we're getting something for these higher prices.
And I think that we need to make sure that that message gets out.
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T.J. Wilson: I think you're right.
And, you know, prices were up stunningly 25%.
Food prices were up 25% during the last administration.
That is an incredible amount of money on average across all goods.
Some goods, oh, yeah, some goods were multi, you know, hundreds of percent high, you know, multiple times higher, you know.
And so folks forget this.
It takes a lot of hard work in the trenches, thousands of hours from the cabinet, from, you know, patriotic folks that are serving the administration, that are leaning on these companies, that are doing the slashing and, you know, strategic surgical cutting to regulations and otherwise to bring down these costs.
You know, I mean, these were America's last policies that took time to sort of slash and gash, and we're thankfully getting there.
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Scott Shellady: Yeah, I totally agree.
Great stuff.
You know, to your point about the 25%, I hear that number all the time.
But do you want to tell me that what, you know, $100 worth of groceries in 2020 was only worth $125 in 2024?
Ask anybody's wife.
They'll tell you, no way I'm God's green earth.
It's more like $160, $170, and I agree with that, too.
So I think that 25% that everybody still uses, and I use it, too, is really not reflective.
But, TJ, always love having you on.
You always bring us some great stuff.
That was a great idea.
I appreciate you.
That story was very interesting.
We'll see how it all comes out.
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